Google helping create intelligent rooms

Google has announced the release of a new bit of open source software designed to help develop interactive and intelligent rooms, that are able to tailor certain things to where a person is standing, what they're looking at, as well as incorporating timed or triggered events.

Wired had a couple of suggestions, such as light controls when a person steps onto certain areas of a room, or motion tracking that tells people it's not polite to point. While the last part might be a little irritating – how will it know whether I'm pointing at someone else or at the annoying disembodied voice telling me not to do it? – there could be some interesting applications here. In shops, standing in-front of certain displays could give more information about a product. If eyes are tracked, looking at certain parts could offer up facts or figures; how it's made or where it comes from perhaps.

Google has so far demonstrated “blob tracking,” where cameras in the ceiling track a person's movement, causing the floor to light up with a ring around their feet.

The application that controls all this is built around Java and supports Apple's OS X as well as Microsoft's Windows and Linux. In the future Google plans to expand to allow for better programming as well as incorporating customised graphical enhancements.

KitGuru Says: What sorts of applications do you think a technology like this has?

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